Never Change
by fiesa
Summary: … A running system. (No matter the consequences.) The Konoha Twelve, and Ino Yamanaka. Complete in seven parts. A story about life – and growing up.
1. Observations of a Child

**Never Change**

_Summary: … A running system. (No matter the consequences.) The Konoha Twelve, and Ino Yamanaka. Complete in seven parts. A story about life – and growing up. _

_Warning: Major warnings for internal dialogue, plotlessness, introspection and angst. Also, was meant to be purely introspective one shot on Konoha's children turned into a Shikamaru/Ino multi-chaptered story. Read at your own risk._

_Set: Story-unrelated. _

_Disclaimer: Standards apply._

_A/N: Summer project. _

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**Part 1 **_Observations of a Child_

"No matter what happens and how far away I am, I'll always come back to you."

When Ino is five years old, she helps her mother arrange the flowers in the shop on evenings when her father is gone. On those nights, her mother lets her stay sometimes, she sends Ino to bed but does not complain when she taps in again, in her night dress and a stuffed animal clutched to her chest. Together, they wait, for hours and hours, and sometimes Ino falls asleep on her mother's lap. But before it happens, they work: there are stacks of unused flower pots, _one-two-three_, Ino can count long before she attends the Academy. There are red, green and brown ones, neat rows and different sizes and small, carefully inscribed labels on each one of them. Ino can read long before she attends the Academy, too. Next, there are the potted plants: arranged by color, mostly, but sometimes by what they need best to bloom. There is a difference between the corner window and the front street window: Ino knows how to judge the position of the sun for its strength and she reads the time of day from the length of the shadows. Ino knows many things before she even turns old enough to be taught properly in school, but none of them matter when she sits in the dark flower shop with her mother, one dim light fluttering above the counter, and counts her heartbeats.

On the day Ino turns twelve years old, she casts surreptitious glances at the other children in the classroom and wonders. Although nobody knows and guesses, she listens closely while the names are being read. The atmosphere is tense and elated at the same time while all the children wonder whether they have passed the test, whether they will be teamed up in the next batch of genin teams or whether they will have to wait another year. _Hinata-Kiba-Shino_, _Ino-Shikamaru-Chouji, Sakura-Sasuke-Naruto. _It seems fitting, somehow, although she cannot say why. There is the small spike of pain in her heart, the same Ino always feels when she thinks about Sakura and Sasuke, and she buries it quickly. She owes them, or, at least, it feels like she owes _Sakura_, and the conundrum in her thoughts is no greater than it would be would she voice them. So then, Chouji and Shikamaru. She knows them both – has known them long before they entered the Academy together. Shikamaru has something that makes her want to run off and keep her distance, and Chouji has something that makes her inexplicably angry. Maybe it is because the first is so _distant_ and the latter so _nice. _Nice people are killed far too early and distant things grow closer and then they hurt. There is a difference between necessity and wish: Ino knows that already. Like a wild flower she knows the ground in which she roots, feels the air she breathes, can judge her surroundings by the scent of rain, wind and water. There is potential for sadness here, she can _feel _it, but she does not know what it means. Not right away, at least.

On her sixteenth birthday she stands on a battlefield. And people around her die. And people around her fight: Sakura as a medic, Hinata and Neji as a team in the defense line, Tenten, Lee and Chouji are attack point, Shino and Kiba reconnaissance. And Ino works as a megaphone for the battle coordinator in their field: Shikamaru's voice floats through her like a river, organizing, requesting, giving orders, strategizing with a clarity of mind that still is incredible. Ino's task is to stay behind him and have his back. It is not a task too small for her, or too unimportant. It is what she does best, with the people she knows longest, and they do what they were trained to do: they fight. They are all the protection the Country of Fire – the entire shinobi world – has. And around them are hundreds of other shinobi from all over the world, fighting, just like them. The strangest thing of all: she does not feel afraid. Perhaps there is no time for fear, and there surely is no time for doubt. There simply is a feeling of detachedness as she fights, and watches: Sasuke and Naruto face the juubi, Sakura heals, the others assist and fight. They could die any second. Burned, crushed, injured, drowned, there is a multitude of possibilities. As a child Ino feared drowning most, now she cannot remember what it feels like to be afraid. Maybe she has lost something essential. Maybe they all have. _You have to protect them, Ino_, a voice resounds in her mind, and she feels Shikamaru's warmth under her hand on his nape. In another world, it would have anchored her but she has already fallen too deep. Because she knows how to fight, and she knows for what, but she does not know the price and that is all the difference it takes. How could it come that far?

On a day in her twenty-third year, Ino closes the door behind her in the evening and stops in the dark corridor that leads to the two small rooms she inhabits all by herself. Emptiness greets her, along with the familiarity of shelves, chair, desk. There is a picture frame on the night stand, familiar faces, long-past times, she sinks onto her bed and stares at it until the contours blur in front of her eyes. She is tired – so, so tired – and she can see the days stretching out before her in the same way they line up behind her: get up, work, go home, sleep. Rinse, repeat. What has changed, she wonders, really, because she still feels small and alone and because every step that was supposed to take her to the next chapter of her life has only proven to be a tiny fold in the fabric of time. She graduated from the Academy and went off to train as a genin, she left her team behind to be trained as a medic and then as Anbu, she entered active duty two years later and there has been no change since she can remember. Why was it that children dreamed of growing up? Where has the time gone, and her dreams, and where, _where_ is the future everyone promised they would have? It is like looking in front of her: everyone has left, leaving her behind, and Ino stands on her own but it is a terribly lonely thing.

Ino cannot even remember when it first occurred to her: there is a pattern to everything.


	2. Children of Fire

**Part 2** _Children of Fire_

The Konoha Twelve, they call them.

One generation of children born in a village hidden in a forest of trees. The post-war generation – but in a world like theirs after a war is before a war. When the question is not how to keep peace but how to prevent a war – and there is a difference, albeit subtle – life seems on hold. Only to children it never ceases to flow. Days pass and months and years - moving forward is their second nature. Naruto is the best example, here: despite all the pain and hardships he has had to overcome he never lost his optimism. Even Sasuke always ever looked forward; his past was what made him strive towards the future he wished for. The past and the future are interconnected; there is no one without the other. But it is the stopping in mid-stream and looking closer at the present that is dangerous. Ino learns this at an early age.

Team Ten is like every other team, except where it is not. They grow into each other, slowly, slowly, it is like learning to swim in a pool filled with sand and a treacherous sheen of ice. She can never stand in fear of breaking in and sinking under. Shikamaru is their genius boy, brilliant, intelligent, some people say he is lazy but Ino knows he is anything but. He's so damn clever he cannot understand there are other people who need some time puzzling out the riddles he has solved within seconds and gets bored while they still try to demonstrate they are not as stupid as he might think they are. Problem is: Shikamaru does not think himself especially clever; and he does not think everyone else especially stupid. He just expects the same of them as of himself and it is what makes it impossible for anyone else to catch up to him. Chouji, on the other hand, is sensible; and sensitive, too. Compassionate and understanding. He is, in that regard, very human. It is why everybody likes him, later, when they are old enough to understand that there is more to every person that what the eye sees. Problem is: Chouji does not think he is especially kind, and he does not think everyone else especially cruel. He just expects them to be as integer and dedicated and understanding like he is and it is what makes it impossible for Ino to look at other people the way Chouji does. When it comes to it she knows she can only mistrust people she knows well. They are too different, all three of them, in any other place they would never have even met. But Team Ten works out, or perhaps it works because they are so different. Or because they have the best teacher to learn from. They survive the chuunin trials, the fight against Pain and the loss of their beloved Asuma-sensei, they survive the Great War and everything in between and after and in the end they find themselves still standing. So there they are: Ino's best friends in the whole world, the two people she trusts more than she trusts herself. And, at the same time, they have the potential to hurt her the most. Because, despite all of it, they do not see her properly and she wonders whether it is just the way she is or whether no person truly can be understood. Maybe she doesn't know Shikamaru and Chouji, either.

Team Seven, much like Team Ten, is mostly referred to by their number. Ino thinks they are, perhaps, the most tragic team. Kakashi is too young to be that scarred on the inside (and the outside, in that regard), Sasuke is too young to be that hate-filled and haunted, Naruto is too young to be marked as an outsider like that. And Sakura? Sakura is too young to lose her innocence, too precious to be tainted, Sakura is Ino's best friend – no, was. She forgets the destroyed that, too, like everything she touches, she set Sakura free by making her hate her and even if it was for the best the only thing that remains is the fact that Ino is alone. Almost every single one of her decisions ends like this: for the better, yes, but not for her. It is fine: Ino has learned to live with the consequences of her actions. So she watches. Naruto fights so fiercely, so protective, he is so strong-willed and honest and maybe, Ino thinks, he will be able to actually do what he strives for. He will succeed, one day. Sasuke is determined, and cool. Ice to Naruto's fire. Apparently it seems to work out well, messages reach Hidden Leaf that Team Seven has defeated Zabuza all by themselves and Ino thinks that perhaps, _perhaps_ there is something that still can be done. And last, Sakura: the girl Ino wishes to be and yet knows she cannot. They were like sisters, once, until Sakura spread her wings and left and Ino remained where she always had been. Team Seven is a thing born from necessity, forged in a fight and tempered by time. But everything breaks. It was to be expected only she had so, so desperately hoped it wouldn't happen. Team Seven breaks far earlier than Team Ten but differently: the cracks and pieces are visible on the outside. It comes back together eventually, only differently, like a mended glass that will never be the same again. With time, Sasuke learns to understand Naruto's desperate wish to be accepted, Sakura learns that she, too, is a part of something so integral that she will have to give up a piece of herself in order to gain something even more valuable, and Naruto learns that there are things that cannot be fought for, only given freely.

Team Four is Kurenai's team. The word most suitable for them is _harmonic_ because they get along so well. Which is strange, regarding the host of personalities accumulating here – or, perhaps not so strange. While Team Seven's relationship is built on desperate longing for acceptance and rivalry, and Team Ten because they desperately need each other, Hinata, Shino and Kiba remain together because they are _good_ with each other. They complement each other, pick up on each other's thoughts. Maybe outsiders just don't see it because of the first impression they make. Ino has learned one thing: first impressions allow close estimations. And yet it is only time – along with familiarity – that allows a clear image. First impressions usually work like this: Kiba is loud and obnoxious, a smelly brat with an annoying pup traipsing along wherever he goes, and he has no care in the world. Shino is withdrawn and hostile, perhaps the fact that he hides his face accounts for that, and he doesn't care much for others and others' opinions. And Hinata, finally, is shy, fragile and weak and extremely awkward around people: exhausting in public, a hindrance in a fight. Oh, of course everyone who thinks like that is dead on. But every shadow has a light side, every land reaches the sea at one point, and human beings are so much more than meets the eye. Because Kiba is the best friend one could wish for, loyal and dependable, and strong in a fight. Shino is a very kind person when it comes to people he cares for, not hostile at all, and he complements Kiba's reconnaissance abilities with an offensive power that holds his own. His dark appearance hides a humor as black as night and the first time Ino hears him make a joke she is so stunned she even forgets to laugh. And Hinata, finally – Hinata is _strong._ No girl should grow up like that, losing her mother early, being disliked by her father, treated badly by her entire family including her little sister – and yet she has pushed through, struggled and built up an incredible strength. She is kind, too, and gentle, the defensive force in her team, and it suits her perfectly. Hinata learned to stand up – for herself, for others and for her dreams, and that is more than Ino thinks she can ever hope to achieve herself.

Which leaves Team Gai. Incredible, unbelievable and inhuman, Ino would like to think of better descriptions but they are the ones that come to her mind. Mostly, it is due to their teacher. Gai-sensei is one of those people one really admires because he says what he thinks, does what he wants, never loses his end- and boundless optimism and dresses without caring for what others say but, at the same time, nobody actually _wants_ to get to know all too closely. Lee is a different story, perhaps because he is their age plus one year. Team Gai is the team everybody knows and whispers about behind closed doors. But it is also the team that attracts approving glances and applause at their performances, the team that is cheered on in exams and the team that makes everyone's mood lighten up. Mind you, Ino knows it's not exactly due to the other male member of the team. Neji is a stubborn blockhead with a stick so far up his ass she sometimes thinks she can see it emerge from the collar of his shirt. He's uptight, traditional and terribly arrogant. What Tenten sees in him she has no idea. But he also can be very gentle, he has been protecting Hinata faithfully ever since _that_ day and he fights for what he believes, so maybe it is that. It is like someone showed him light in the middle of a dark night and Ino sometimes wonders whether it was Hinata, Naruto or Tenten – probably all of them. They have her deepest respect. Dealing with someone like Neji is exhausting and Ino has her own teammates to care for. Tenten, in the meantime, is strong, determined and a model example for emancipation. Ino has seen a lot but she never has seen a human being fight like Tenten. And while she might be easily offended and overly emotional there are few other shinobi Ino would trust as much as she trusts Tenten. Since she is a year older than the rest of the girls, she takes the role of the elder sister: laughing, going out with them, looking out for them. For this Ino is grateful, although she prefers to keep her own affairs to herself. But for days out with Sakura and Hinata it is wonderful to have Tenten who can laugh, boast and eat at the same time and when some weirdos try to hook up with them Tenten sends them to hell. And Lee, finally – Lee is a Gai-clone, there is nothing more to say. Only Ino could add that Lee would never ever leave a comrade behind – and that, in her eyes, counts as one of the most important qualities a shinobi could ever claim to possess. He also keeps challenging himself, always daring himself to go further, to become stronger – there is nothing he sees as impossible, nothing that can't be done. Together, all three of them radiate a kind of optimism that is admirable and sometimes stupid, but admirable nonetheless.

Four teams, twelve children: one story. One village: Hidden Leaf.

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_A/N: Thanks to you, too, Reader-chan, for reading and reviewing. _


	3. Sins of the Fathers

**Part 3 **_Sins of the Fathers_

They are only twelve. Twelve of the many children who were trained to be genin and who grew up to be the adults they are today, in this twisted, broken world they call their own. And there is a pattern that enfolds all of them, history rewinding itself in an endless circle. Stories repeat themes, but life repeats tragedies.

If Ino can see it, everyone else should be able to, because how obvious is it?

There was a Princess once and her two teammates and they became the greatest shinobi ever until one of them left and one of them gave up and one of them practiced denial. Then, there was a Healer and her two teammates and there was war again, and again one of them died and one of them left and one just fell apart. And now, here they are, _da capo_, please: Sakura, Naruto, Sasuke. One left, one was lonely right from the beginning, one of them shattered. And everyone knows the end of the story. Oh yes, of course, there is a happy ending because that's what it has to be like to be cried over: after years of fruitless searching (and of pain and injuries and desperation and more pain) they find Sasuke in the middle of a battlefield. They unite to vanquish evil and everything is perfect, happy endings and fake flowers and confetti. And Ino hates it so much she could scream. How could they go back again? Just like that? It should have been impossible. To her it certainly was. Sasuke's betrayal had changed them, all of them, every genin of their generation. This was something that had affected the entirety of the Konoha Twelve. There were the things Sasuke had done that couldn't be forgiven that easily, or, if they could – what Ino didn't find possible but what seemed to work for many others – they could never be forgotten. Ino remembers she used to be the one who had sighed and interrupted and bitched when Asuma-sensei had started his rants on responsibility: now she finds she hates nothing more than the fact that someone could ditch his, could weasel out of his responsibility just because something else he did was grand and heroic. If it was like that it meant that any crime could be overlooked if only something distinctly _good_ was being done in return, and _that just wasn't true._ The end might justify the means? Bullshit. There is no justification, not ever. Human beings were responsible for every decision they made. Ignorance was no excuse, a lack of advice was no excuse, a momentary lapse in reason was no excuse: if one did not learn to stand up for his own decisions and actions, how could one possibly learn from one's mistakes?

In the same way, there never is merely one reason for something, but Ino finds that one of the things that keep bothering her is accumulated in one fact.

Why does Konoha pair up her children like that? Who decided this, and why? What were the reasons, were there reasons at all? Two boys, one girl, always and forever. It is a system that, in the past and present, has always turned out to be hurtful and cruel. Perhaps if Jiraiya and Orochimaru hadn't met each other, if Rin hadn't stood between Kakashi and Obito, perhaps if there had been someone else for Naruto except for Sakura who refused to acknowledge his feelings and Sasuke who refused to acknowledge Naruto, perhaps… Perhaps then a lot of pain could have been avoided. And yet again, Ino watches a new batch of genin graduate the Academy – Chouji gets his first genin team, and Lee – and again: two boys, one girl, once and forever. Nothing learned, nothing changed, no matter how loudly history is laughing in her face. And despite seeing it clearly – despite her conscience that screams for her to do _something_, change _something_, just throw a tantrum until _someone_ realizes and reacts – Ino finds that she is unable to do _anything. _She is as cursed as the rest of her generation, perhaps as cursed as the entirety of Hidden Leaf.

And then she wonders: is it just that she hates the system because what she really feels cannot be put into words?

…

A long time ago, she refused to come to training one day.

"Ino." Asuma-sensei is smoking his usual, smelly cigarettes, she has to look up to meet his eyes and she does not want to. So she continues staring down at the village below the cliff: busy midday streets, colorful houses, a village until the gates and forest beyond.

"What are you doing?"

"I don't want to train anymore."

"Is that so." He sits down next to her, sighing as he stubs out his cigarette. "What happened?"

Ino puts her forehead onto her knees and wraps her arms around herself. "Nothing."

"Has this something to do with your father?"

"No."

Of course it has – but it isn't that simple. Inoichi Yamanaka is a strong man. He fights, and sometimes he returns injured, but he always returns. Ino doesn't know much, but she knows her father will always come back, no matter what. He's strong like that. He can take care of himself.

"What is it, then?"

If only she knew herself.

"Sensei," she asks and gazes down at the village again. "Why us?"

"Why who?"

"Team Ten. Why Shikamaru, Chouji and me? We don't go well together. Shikamaru is always lazing around, Chouji eats and I know they say I'm an annoying, hysterical bitch. Why can't I be on a team with Hinata, for example? She's nice."

"Hmmm." He sounds like he is contemplating lighting his next cigarette or not. "I guess I can't throw you off with a silly answer on fate and karma, can I?"

"Don't talk bullshit, Sensei."

"Watch your language, young lady." He sighs again. "Well. The teams are put together carefully after evaluating each student's capabilities, both physical and mental. Based on what fighting preferences you have shown, stuff like that. Granted, it's not easy to predict how you're going to turn out. Sometimes, teams really don't match. But there are quite a few who turned out pretty well."

"But you never know."

"No." He lights the cigarette and blows out the smoke slowly. "But failure or success doesn't depend on the instructors who decided which students would make up which teams. That's on the individual people, you know."

"I know." Ino mumbles.

"Hey." Asuma-sensei pets her head. "You like Shikamaru and Chouji, don't you? You will get along eventually."

"My hair!" Ino scrambles away while Asuma-sensei laughs and she never answers the question. The honest answer would have been: yes, she likes them – sometimes, perhaps most of the time – but that makes the thought of them not returning one day only more terrifying.

Because people die. Asuma-sensei dies. And his last words go beyond the words that he says, reach far deeper than Shikamaru and Chouji guess or will ever know. But Ino understands and Asuma knows she does.

_You have to protect them, Ino._

Protect them her ass. She can't even protect Sakura, much less all the other people that die in that useless war. Ino can't even protect herself.

…

The thing is: in the end, everything turns out alright. In the Great War Orochimaru fights at their side and Sasuke returns and even Obito forgives Kakashi in the end. Team Seven is united again. Chouji's genin team makes it through, despite hurt and pain and loneliness. Ino suspects there might be many more, many former genin teams before and after her that fell apart for some reason and yet found each other again. So what is it: a farce, a stupid game of repetition, the wheel of fortune? If anyone ever dared to tell her it was just a way of forging stronger bonds, of learning how to live and how to go on, she would laugh them in the face. What good has there ever come from hate, abandonment and loneliness?

So young, so bitter.

Ino feels like she is indulging in self-pity far too much but on the other hand she doesn't really care. Everybody leaves, anyway.


	4. Parent-child-relations

**Part 4 **_Parent-child-relations_

Inoichi Yamanaka is not your average father.

He is a shinobi – that alone tells a story. It is a story about waiting for Daddy to come home in a house that feels empty although both Mommy and Ino are there, a story about Mommy pacing the hallway anxiously when Ino is supposed to be asleep in her room. A story of dinners being constantly set later and later until they give up and eat without him, and it is mostly done in silence. The story also contains chapters of waiting in front of the headquarters, at odd hours when even the security guard at the entrance has already disappeared into the small glass cabin just inside the building entrance, of walking home at all weathers with two warm hands wrapped around Ino's small little fists. A story of dinners that make her laugh so hard she cannot eat anymore, of being tickled on the living room floor until she begs for mercy, of running in circles in the garden and laughing and laughing. Of long walks accompanied by long stories, all of them real because Inoichi knows many people and many things and many places and Ino listens with the excitement of little children and the interest of growing daughters and finally with the intention to learn but with the sinking feeling of being unable to live up to her father's standards. But until that point is reached, it takes a while.

She loves him most when he doesn't try so hard.

And she struggles to be the perfect daughter but ultimately fails every time. Fact: children learn from their parents' experience, but only little. It is one thing to make mistakes, to recognize them and to avoid them the next time round. The other thing is to listen to stories about things that can be done wrongly, of mistakes that can occur and accidents that might happen. It is one thing to know that a decision is wrong – the other thing is to go through with it because one has _decided_ oneself and because one has to make all the mistakes oneself in order to learn from them. Ino, on the road to adulthood, finds that there is one thing she hates with an intensity that is unreasonable: going back on her own decisions. And yet, she cannot help it: it happens again and again. Small things, but larger things, too. There was the summer she – or rather, her parents – had to decide whether to send her to the Academy or to a normal school. That summer Ino had decided to become a botanist. It was a decision of a child, granted, and nevertheless she had thought about it. She had agonized – Daddy had said the employment situation wasn't ideal but she loved flowers and everything nature-related and besides, there were other countries that didn't have crops as rich as Hidden Leaf and she wanted to help them. Inoichi listened to her arguments with an impassive face and then set off to pick apart her carefully assembled list. One's own hobbies and likes should not influence one's decision for a future. Only women ever chose their future with other people's needs in mind, it was what made them weak. Weak and under-paid and academically unchallenged, and unsuited for a society in which only the strong survived. And if she thought she really wanted to expand her future into that direction – would she be willing to prove it by working on a farm for the next two years?

There were tears.

Another thing she hates is that she cries whenever her father confronts her directly. It is like she has no defenses against him and he uses the fact. _Stop crying, will you? _It is not like he wants to make her cry – he doesn't even raise his voice when he tells her about friends of his that failed in careers and life, of people he knew that lived unhappy, unsatisfactory lives. It is the point she reaches again and again: he just wants her to learn, to think about her own future. He wants her to be happy and, most of all, to have the life he wishes for her to have. Inoichi does not want his daughter to make the same mistakes he made and in doing so he might help her. But he hurts her, too. It ends with Ino attending Konoha Academy and training to be a shinobi and she never regrets it but she learns that she is no match for her father. He controls her in the same way Shikamaru puts his family jutsu to use: from the shadows; and completely and utterly.

Still, she loves him. How could she not? He is her father.

He and his team mates of the old Ino-Shika-Chou generation survive the Fourth Great Shinobi War just barely. At that point she's just glad they all made it out more or less unscathed and the grief for the ones who didn't and the work that remains to be done effectively divert her thoughts from the _what-if. _For a few months, while the situation in Leaf and its allied villages stabilizes again, everything is alright. In the evening Ino is so tired she falls into bed after midnight and wakes at dawn and cannot remember anything. And then there is the day the Hokage looks at her and asks her why she isn't at home with her father and Ino feels all of her blood drain from her face. For the first time since she can remember she wakes up at night, her heart pounding, fear running through her veins like liquid ice. _He has died._ Her mother promised to call if it became worse but the phone is silent. Ino lies there for a long time and stares into the darkness, waiting, praying, and when she can't stand it anymore she gets dressed and rushes to the hospital. Inoichi is asleep, his breath not as labored as before. Her mother has fallen asleep on the seat next to the bed and there are silver strands in her hair she never noticed before. Ino stands in the door and watches with the dawning realization that her parents aren't young anymore. Something could happen to them any time. It is terrifying: one day, she will be left behind. All children grow up one day. Ino has long before become an adult. It is just that she still feels like a child in the face of her parents, coming home and waiting for dinner, listening to them lecturing her and taking them for granted in a way she doesn't even take her own friends for granted since they fought a war. But no matter how much she wishes to go back to her precious childhood: she is a grown woman now. She loves them so much she could cry.

Nevertheless, in their eyes, she will always remain a child.

Telling her parents of her decision to become Anbu turns out to be exactly the kind of nightmare she had thought it would be. This, she thinks, is the reason why she has taken to telling her parents little to nothing of her everyday life, why she laughs and tells anecdotes but why there is very little general information – and, most important – information on _her_ life – in her words. She can't remember when she started the 'if not asked, do not tell-'policy she now calls her own but it has become her second nature over time. It's not deliberate – at least not towards her parents – but she has a life and they have theirs and seeing each other increasingly less means that some things get lost, too.

Oh, and the incredulity that rises to fear that, in return, rises to anger, and she cannot look at Inoichi anymore so she leaves the room and closes the door carefully behind her.

"Have you thought about this well?" Her mother asks and sits down next to her on the bed in the dark, small bedroom. She moved out after the war. It was ages ago but this place still carries her presence like a shield.

"Mother," Ino says and sighs. "Of course I have. I'm not fourteen anymore."

"No, you're not."

The silence that falls tells of how she sometimes wished Ino still was a small child, easy to hold and to console, to protect from the world.

"Oh, love, but Anbu? They're high-class. And I don't mean to imply you couldn't be one of them. But… Let's just say the mortality rate is the highest that is in Hidden Leaf."

"Father was a shinobi, too. He could have died many times."

_He almost died the last time. _Heartbeats in the silence of a dark flower shop. Death didn't always come on the battle field. _I'll always come back to you._

"Yes, but being a shinobi and being an Anbu… These are different things. It's like comparing the Hokage and a choir leader."

Ino snorts. "Way to go, Mother."

"Ino, listen to me. The training is gruesome and being Anbu means being on duty every day, every night. It involves dangerous solo missions. Your father, at least, always had his team mates by his side. And Anbu… You know what kind of jobs they get. Why would you want to do something like that?"

She can't very well tell her mother that there is no reason, just a _feeling_, so she says nothing.

"Please, won't you think it over another time? You could concentrate on becoming a full-fledged medic. Or join the torture and interrogation squad, your father can talk to Ibiki-san. Why does it have to be Anbu?"

The pleas wrap around her like an invisible veil, threaten to suffocate her. Reason, reason - it is her excuse, sense taking away everything she had set her mind on by making her abandon it. It was sensible to join the Academy, it was sensible to train to become a medic. Choosing Anbu over a safe, simple career with the interrogation squad or as a medic in the hospital is irrational and unreasonable. It makes no sense for her: well-off, single-child daughter from a respected and ancient middle-class family. The worst of it is that she does not want to hurt her mother like that. Seeing her father angry she wants to hug him like she did when she was a child and tell him that she, of course, would listen to his freely given, well-meant advice. But it would have just been avoidance, a stalling until the next confrontation. She has to do it now, she _has_ to: break away before you suffocate.

Since she doesn't answer, Ria sighs. She knows her daughter.

"You really want to do this, love, right?"

"Yes," Ino says. _I have to._

"You are so much like your father."

Yes, she is. But Ino is like Ria, too. Her mother has the strength to let go of her: children have to go out into the world at some point, leave behind parents and home and take responsibility for their own actions and decisions. It makes her wonder whether she will have the strength to let go of her own children one day, in the same way her mother lets go but still manages to convey her deep love for her only daughter.

"And everybody tells me I am more like you," Ino says. Ria laughs and wraps an arm around her daughter's shoulders.

"You got your father's brains and my temper. And my good looks, of course."


	5. Memories of a Tin Soldier

**Part 5 **_Memories of a Tin Soldier_

Ino cannot even remember when it first occurs to her: there is a pattern to everything.

One day – she is not yet but close to twenty-five – Ino wakes up in the hospital and needs half a minute to remember what happened. Her entire body is screaming in agony – everything except for her legs and she thinks, _dammit, this is it. _She is medic enough to know the symptoms and the meaning of the words _irreparable spinal damage_ and besides, she knows what kind of wound she received. And she is really, really not sure what to do now: crawl to the window and let go, or close her eyes and never get up again. Since no option actually _is_ an option, she starts laughing. (They sedate her and when she wakes up again Shikamaru is there and she laughs again and tells him at least it's not necessary to strap her to the bed to stop her from harming herself.)

Becoming Anbu never was about strength.

When it comes to it, Ino knows that she is weak: but she can fight until she can't stand anymore. Becoming Anbu never was about proving her strength. Becoming Anbu was about protecting, as clichéd as it sounds, it was about being there when nobody else was in order to protect what she loves. Hidden Leaf is her home, full of people she has known her entire life: how could she not want them to be happy, live happily ever after? There was a limit to what shinobi did. They fought, but only if provoked; they killed, but only in self-defense. There was a line somewhere between fighting and killing; between feeling helpless and feeling angry. Somewhere she had crossed it and found herself in a no-man's-land between night and day. There is no glory in killing but perhaps in the cause, an Anbu without cause is just as worthless as any other S-class missing-nin.

This was not the end she had thought she would have.

Ino had known the most likely end for her would be death. She had not planned to be stabbed in the back by a wakizashi. Technically speaking, the enemy shouldn't have been able to even get close to her. But the first to get lost in a fight was reason, the second was the battle plan. And _children._ Standing by, _watching_, had been out of question.

This is a first.

Rin and Jiraiya died. Lee can't go too far with his techniques out of fear of opening what will be the last Heavenly Gate he will pass through. Chouji has the red pill, Neji has a blind spot, Shikamaru has his shadows. Sakura lost her innocence and her dreams, Kakashi lost an eye, Sasuke lost his sight and his reason, for a while. But nobody Ino knows of ever lost something as trivial as_ his ability to move his legs_ and again, she laughs at the irony. And then she screams, _screams_ and cries and cries and cries until she can't remember if she's only crying for herself or for all the other things she lost – for all the things _they_ lost, Konoha lost, lost people and lost lives and lost hope – and then she starts laughing again and they sedate her again. This goes for some time until they realize they can't drug her any longer without causing side effects and at that point she honestly does not care anymore. Two options: she can become what she always loathed – people who couldn't find reason to their lives, people who moaned and whined and felt so lost and alone and _told_ everyone so. Or she can grit her teeth and continue on. There has to be a way. It doesn't mean she won't be afraid – she is terrified – or won't be left behind. Still, she finds the latter possibility appeals to her more than the first. And that's about it. If anything, it gives her perspective.

Why did it hurt so much, before?

Thinking back, those years were the best years of her life. Ino knew it before but now she _accepts _it for the first time. She had a goal, she had companions, she was free to learn and to grow. There were the evenings spent at Chouji's favorite barbeque restaurant and warm summer days on Shikamaru's porch while the boys slowly dozed off as she watched them. Later on, girls' nights out with Sakura, Hinata and Tenten, the four of them laughing and talking until dawn, training camps and friendly rivalry between the four teams, sparring matches, contests. Missions and voyages. Oh, she knows her childhood was short and growing up was fast and painful but there were good days. Days when she woke up feeling so much love that she felt like crying. It was what happened between Sasuke's defection and Asuma-sensei's death, between Ino's fight with Sakura and the outbreak of the war. So short and therefore all the more precious. And gone. It slipped through her fingers like sand, warm to the touch but impossible to hold on to nevertheless. Everything after didn't bring only bad memories, either. Anbu training, while horrid, is one of those things she remembers because she managed to be more than she always seemed to be. Missions with Naruto and sometimes with Tenten and Neji, summer festivals in Hidden Leaf, weekends spent with her parents. And Ino can clearly remember Asuma-sensei's face, even his voice, his patience when it came to teaching them – didn't people always say those things were lost as the years passed? But it had been ten years now and she still felt like he could walk around the corner any time. Maybe Ino just never grew up, or she grew up too fast. It doesn't matter, not anymore. She just knows there is no way she can give up.

Only going forward proves to be very, very hard when your own feet won't support you anymore. She manages – somehow, but she feels like the one-legged tin soldier: unable to walk, lonely and very, very lost.

And her parents. She never saw her father cry before and it breaks her heart. Her mother smiles. _I'm still alive_, she tries to convey with her eyes. Perhaps the message reaches them because they eventually stop being tense around her, the over-protectiveness remains, though. _We'll always be your parents first,_ her mother tells her. _One day, you'll understand._ She doubts she will but she smiles nevertheless.

"Ino," Shikamaru tells her, frowning like always. Chouji behind him smiles embarrassed and that, more than anything, tells her something is off.

It is one of their rare visits together. The three of them used to be able to spend entire days together but that time seems long gone. Nowadays Shikamaru is busy, Chouji is busy and Ino makes herself busy. Sometimes she wonders what they are trying to prove, Shikamaru and her. Who of them actually manages to outrun the thing that is chasing them, that faceless, soundless threat of something neither of them can name but both know is there. Actually, this is not a visit as much as an intervention, Ino suspects, and sighs inwardly.

"Shikamaru, Chouji." She maneuvers them inside and manages to offer them a cup of tea before Shikamaru finally looks up and looks at her – actually _looks_ at her, she can't remember when he did so the last time – and speaks.

"This can't go on."

Asking for the _what _is futile. All of them have known each other for months.

"Says who?"

"Me, and Chouji. And others. Sakura is worried to death. All of us are. We know this is hard for you-"

Life is a cruel, cruel thing, and the cruelest of all are the people. People hurt each other, people kill each other – it has brought her to the point she is in right now. People also pretend to understand – pretend to care – and there is nothing more hurtful than a friend who thinks he knows what you feel and _says_ so. _Who are you to say you know how I feel_, she wants to scream, but she has long learned not to say these words.

Chouji finishes his friend's sentences the way he always used to. "But you can't go on like this."

"Why not?"

Shikamaru gets up, walks around the table and plants his hands left and right on the armrests of her chair. He is closer than he has been since they were children and suddenly it _hurts. _

"You can't go on pretending everything is alright when it's not."

"So should I break down and cry and try to commit suicide because I can't accept the situation I am in? Isn't acceptance the one thing that will bring me forward? At least that's my understanding, from what the shrink said."

Something flashes in his eyes, anger so hot she can almost feel it. "You might pretend you accepted it, but you haven't."

At that, her own anger flares: "Oh, believe me, Shikamaru, I have. If anything, I have accepted this: I'm not going to walk again. It's just you who can't, you and Sakura and all the others, because watching me reminds you of the fact that you are mortal, as well."

"You think that's it?" Shikamaru frowns, the anger he used to bait her gone, and she hates him for it. "Well, that might be part of it, yes. But it's not everything."

"Well, enlighten me." Suddenly she is tired, so tired she just wants to lie down and sleep. Only the way to her bed costs her energy she cannot muster right now and she won't ask for Shikamaru's help.

"We are worried about you." Chouji states it softly. "It's not only us, too, Ino. Everyone is worried. Sakura, Hinata - all of your friends. Have you forgotten them?" His voice is pleading and his eyes are, too. When Ino and Shikamaru fight he is the one who mediates and even though it seems they forget him when they argue he is always present in the background of their minds. They are Team Ten, after all.

As usual, everything Chouji says is true: all of them have visited her, at one point or another. In the hospital, at home. Awkward first and then freer, as soon as they realized she couldn't move her legs but other than that still was the same (or something like that). Sakura and Hinata come most often, sometimes accompanied by Tenten, they go out for dinner a few times or meet for tea or ice-cream. Kiba offered to give her a little puppy – which was an unrealistic idea, however well meant, because how could she take care of a dog if she couldn't even take care of herself? – but the sentiment was what counted. Shino helped her take care of a wasp problem on the porch. Naruto's company, steady and familiar, is a constant reminder of what she will never be again but when he sits with her and simply chats about the village and the people Ino feels like she isn't such a lost case. Lee offers to do shopping for her again and again and tries to cheer her up by challenging Neji to a duel and Neji doesn't talk much but offered to lend her some books. Chouji takes her out on Sundays to go cloud-gazing. And Shikamaru… He just is _there,_ so present and _real_ it almost scares her. So she has spent months in rehabilitation so her muscles won't degenerate but it will never bring her back her legs, she has pulled herself out of the black hole of depression, she has worked and worked until she was able to almost live by herself again, she has endured pain and hopelessness and the shame of having to rely on others for the simplest of tasks and has tried so hard to be _strong_ only to look into Shikamaru's eyes now and feel her defenses crumble to dust and ashes.

"Don't keep us out, Ino," he whispers, and she covers her face with her hands. Her own tears are strangely warm.

"Visit me more often?" Her voice is plaintive and rough and she loathes it but Shikamaru smiles. It's the first real smile she can remember seeing on his face since… Well, since.

He does.


	6. Tangible Evidence

**Part 6 **_Tangible Evidence_

When Ino is almost twenty-seven years old Hidden Leaf prepares for the party of the decade.

Sakura marries Naruto – and Ino can hear the words, hears them clearly. Who said them? Asuma-sensei? Her mother? It does not matter. _People change and hearts do, too_. And Sakura looks so happy, so incredibly beautiful. Naruto smiles, too, smiles so brightly. Hidden Leaf celebrates for days on end. Next, Chouji proposes to his long-time girlfriend – as Kiba remarks sarcastically, nobody had seen _that_ _one_ coming – and Neji comes back from a routine checkup at the hospital all confused and strange, runs into Sakura and cannot even answer her greeting in his flustered state. A few days later Hinata comes to see Ino and radiates a beauty that speaks volumes and Ino grins at Neji and says good for him, because it is about time they start thinking of children after having been married for three years already and her words drain all the color from his face in an exemplary display of realization. Other things fall into place – time goes by – people come and people leave and days and months and years pass.

People do grow.

It is a wondrous thing: watching all those children she knew being so comfortable with their roles as adults. Not immediately, of course – but as days pass and weeks and even years, routine sets in. Work becomes habit as well-loved tasks become nature. It is not always what she expected but in most cases it might be even better.

Tangible evidence for growth:

A year before the news of her pregnancy reach Ino, Hinata succeeds her father in her position as head of the Hyuuga. Tenten tells Ino that Hiashi Hyuuga smiled when he saw his daughter sitting in his place at the head of the table for the first time – actually smiled. It just supports Ino's theory that there always are hidden depths to every person's character, things that even the people closest to a person can't ever know. Still, it is not the most surprising development. It actually isn't even Tenten, who was the first to get pregnant. It is Kiba who snatches away this place with his decision to leave Hidden Leaf. Not forever, but. On his farewell party he laughs and explains he wants to see the world, wants to travel and learn, but that he will always return to Konoha. Ino suspects he wants to learn more in order to be able to help his sister lead the Inuzuka Clan and when she asks him in private he grins embarrassed and shrugs.

"Not everybody has Hinata's intelligence and upbringing," he says. "She was educated to be the Clan leader, no matter how much her family opposed it. I haven't had that kind of childhood. I feel that I still have a lot to learn."

"That's surprisingly thoughtful, you know." And she can't resist teasing him: "And so grown-up."

"I know." He laughs, a Kiba-laugh that has become strangely familiar. "Don't tell anyone I said that."

Chouji and Lee decided to become genin instructors shortly after the war already and Sasuke follows a year later. Ino remembers a conversation: "How could they let Lee pass?" Sakura mourns. "The poor kids will be scared to death!"

"Well, Neji and Tenten turned out quite fine, even under Gai's tutelage." Ino answers, amused.

"Yeah, a rate of two out of three still means there is a severe loss somewhere," Sakura shoots back and can't help but grin. "Let's see just how that will work out."

Nobody has doubts about Chouji. He is the perfect teacher: calm and strong and he doesn't mind teaching his students through unorthodox methods. The day Ino comes unto an uncontrollably laughing Hinata she thinks something horrible must have happened but it turns out Chouji has, as a pedagogic method, brought his genin along for cloud-watching and, when they couldn't be silent, wrapped them into spare summoning scrolls and hung them from the surrounding trees like Christmas decoration. It is, if anything, a lesson worth being remembered, and years later the genin would scream with laughter at the memory.

Sasuke seems to pick up on a few of Kakashi's habits. As long as he doesn't read those dirty little books, though, Ino thinks it will be fine. He looks much more handsome when his face isn't contorted in a frown of anxiety. He seems to have learned that he doesn't always have to be perfect. It changes a great many things around Hidden Leaf: the return of the Uchiha.

Shino joins Roots. Ino has the silent suspicion that he is being sent to clean up on the outdated, antagonistic methods and ideas. Is Naruto behind this, in his position as aide to the Godaime Hokage? She doesn't know. It takes two years: by then, Roots has changed into a remarkable troupe of highly trained intelligence analysts absolutely loyal to the Fire Shadow. And who else would that be than Naruto? He is inaugurated in a big ceremony to which all other four Kages are invited, and Ino thinks she rarely saw Senju Tsunade as happy as on the day she gives up her position.

Naruto and she are on the roof of the main house, a place she rarely gets to go now that she needs the help with the stairs and her chair. But it remains one of her favorite places and Naruto knows.

"It took you longer than I expected it would."

"Ah, Ino, do you say that because you always knew I would make it or because you thought I'd wear Tsunade-baasan out sooner?"

"Both?" They laugh, and when the laughter dies down, Ino sighs. "Don't you miss it sometimes?"

"What? Anbu missions? No." Naruto shakes his head, grinning. "It was fun as long as it lasted, but now…" His glance falls onto her legs. "But you would have continued, Ino, no matter what, right?"

Her silence is answer enough.

"Pity. I could have used a good Anbu Captain. Speaking of that – the position as Head of Intelligence is unoccupied."

Ino freezes. "You're not being serious."

"I've never been more serious before. I need a good intelligence analyst. You have the basic training, you have field experience, you have the connections and abilities. I want you to work with me again. Or, rather, _for_ me."

"Naruto-"

"I don't care that you can't walk. I need your experience and information-gathering skills. Although, if you turn me down now I guess your head has been damaged. In that case, I definitely don't want you."

She doesn't know what to say. "The pay is pitiful."

"Complain to your boss, not to me."

He makes her laugh, just like hat. Naruto is one of the few people who don't make her feel like a cripple and she loves him for it as much as she loves him for choosing Shikamaru as his adviser. They made a great team from the first day they were thrown together, a day so far in the past it feels like eternity. Today, Shikamaru bullies Naruto into working and reminds him of politics, councils, hidden dangers and the necessity of punctuality. In return, Naruto forces Shikamaru out, makes him work - but he makes him relax, too. Ino figures both of them need each other. And it works out in the best way possible.

People grow. Lives change – priorities change – sometimes, even feelings change, Sakura is a living example. The only constant is Ino herself: she doesn't feel all too different. But that might be only her point of view.

When Ino is twenty-seven she turns around and finds she is alone in the flower shop. Night has fallen over Hidden Leaf and the streetlamps cast their orange light over the empty streets. A few last people pass by on their way home. Tsubasa, her assistant, has left some time ago and usually Ino leaves at this time, too, but today she feels like staying a while. Slowly, slowly, she turns her wheelchair and regards her surroundings: there are stacks of unused flower pots, neatly lined up in the shelves, different sizes, different colors. Next, there are the potted plants: arranged by color and by how much sun and water they need, the sun-loving ones close to the south-going window, shadow-plants at the northern wall. When she was a child this place held power: it still does. All her memories are stowed away in the shop she inherited from her parents, her entire childhood, her teenage years, her adult life. The flower shop holds memories of her first sleepover with both Sakura and Hinata, the three of them giggling and chatting until well after midnight. Or the first test Asuma-sensei put Team Ten through, the one they surely wouldn't have failed hadn't Chouji decided to take a break to eat chips while Shikamaru had watched clouds and thereby had forced Ino to shout at them, which, of course, had called upon their sensei - which made them lose. Shikamaru's elevation to chuunin, which they had celebrated in the barbecue restaurant. Even Sensei's funeral is here and the first time she held his and Kurenai-sensei's little girl. The celebration after the war. Her training with Anko-sensei to become Anbu, her missions with Naruto, the meetings with Chouji and Shikamaru on weekends, going out with the girls, Hinata's engagement party, her parents' silver wedding ceremony. All of them are there, in every stage of childhood, teenage and adult years: Shikamaru, Chouji, Sakura, Sasuke, Naruto, Lee, Neji, Tenten, Kiba, Shino and Hinata, and the many, many people she has gotten to know. A memory palace full of dreams of a different time.

One day in Ino's twenty-eight year she looks at the life she has made her own and feels strangely sad and elated at the same time. And then, the door to the flower shop opens despite the Closed-sign and a stranger enters, shifting from shadow to light until he is no longer a stranger but her oldest, closest friend. He twitches an invisible smile at her and Ino smiles back. A cool gust of wind fades as it dissipates in the warmth of the shop: night has now fallen completely.

"What's up?" Ino asks and more feels than sees Shikamaru shrug.

"I saw you inside when I was passing by, so I came in."

"Hmm." She acknowledges without comment.

"Are you going home?"

"I guess."

"I'll walk you."

The evening air is cool. Glancing up at Shikamaru (it is a different perspective, one she had to get used to first: everyone is taller than her now) she watches his profile. He isn't handsome in the typical sense of the word. He never was what she once would have described as good-looking, either, and yet her heart contracts at his sight: this is _Shikamaru_. She has loved him for so long she cannot remember when it began.

The door to her apartment is purple, Naruto painted it for her. Ino fashioned the small flower wreath herself.

He looks down at her, the frown she knows so well clear on his face even in the darkness. Opening his mouth he makes up his mind, closes it again. For another stretch of time, silence hangs over them. Then he asks: "Are you ever going to say it?"

Ino smiles. He's manipulating her, clearly, but two can play this game. _Not naming this. _"It's not like _you_ are going to say anything." The topic is clear, so clear. She should be jealous, furious, bitchy, sad, melodramatic. She should be everything but this love feels like it has been with her so long it is an old friend even though it causes her pain sometimes.

"Fine." Shikamaru stops in front of her door, turns to face her. "What do you want, Ino? What do you really want?"

"There are many things I want." Many things she dreams of. Her life has been nothing how she expected it to be, still, is being content so wrong?

"Does what I want count for anything?" He asks, leaning down, dark eyes watching her with familiar intensity and alien frustration and she shivers.

"If you want something," Ino answers, "you have to work for it. Nothing in this world is for free."

He squeezes his eyes shut and sighs and the words are slow, carefully placed. _This is life, Shikamaru, not a diplomatic mission. _But everything he does he does with this same care.

"Were you ever jealous of Temari?"

They never talked about it, ever. Shikamaru's five-year relationship with the diplomat from Hidden Sand is something that always stood between them but none of them ever mentioned. Like a wall, it hadn't been too high to block Ino's view from him but it had effectively stopped her from edging closer. It had been for the better – or, at least, she had told herself it had been.

"Would it matter today? I could as well ask you if you still love her." The pinprick of hurt is there, ghost of a pain that once seemed to define her entire life.

"She's married."

Ino looks at him with a mixture of exasperation and anger. "I know that. Would it matter if you still loved her? No, it wouldn't. You can't explain everything with logic, Shikamaru. Human beings are illogical. Hearts are, too."

He is silent for a long while.

"Will you still love me if I love you back?"

Silence, as his words sink in. And then: a sudden burst of understanding; and Ino laughs - half-incredulous, half-terrified. This is it. The reason why she never dared to hope and he never thought to act. "That's what you think it is?" She faces him, a dark silhouette against the night sky. "You think I love you because you'll never love me back? Because, that way, I wouldn't be hurt by starting a relationship with someone else. All those years, you've been my ultimate security net? That's something, even coming from you. How did you get this idea?"

His jaws work. "I know you."

"Obviously not." Maybe too much. But however well he might know her – at this point his intelligence has taken overhand, has provided him with a perfect reason and excuse so far from reality that it sounds all the more reasonable. "You stupid, stupid…" She stops, searching for an appropriate insult. Comes up with nothing. "Whatever," she finishes, trying very hard to keep her expression as blank as his and still knowing she is failing. In the jumbled mix that are her emotions there is elevation, somewhere, relief and an amount of pain so high she wants to shut the door in his face and do nothing but cry for the rest of the evening. If she only had tears she could shed. "Thanks for walking me. I'll see you."

A wheelchair is a serious disadvantage when your opponent simply won't move aside. Ino considers running him over and yet knows such a scenario would end with her on the ground, most likely, although Shikamaru might bruise his shins in the process.

"Move aside-"

He leans down, folds his lean figure into an awkward, crouched position in order to look at her at eye-level. His dark eyes are intense, like he is holding back something she cannot define. It scares her because he is so alien, so different, a stranger in the man she has known for her entire life. "How did you do it?"

"Do what?" Surprised, Ino forgets her anger for a second.

"I've known you forever. How did you make me fall in love with you only now?"

Only now? What is he trying to say? Exasperated, Ino glowers at him angrily, her fingers curling around the arm-rests of her chair.

"How did I do _what_? How should I know? Maybe it was my sparkling makeover into a lost case? And anyway, who are you and what have you done to Shikamaru? He'd never talk like that." Sarcasm, the last defense of the desperate and she can feel the burning sensation behind the lids of her eyes. He sounds honest, so much like Shikamaru and it is exactly for that reason that she does not dare to believe. She knows him, after all. "Shikamaru, you're being weird. Are you-"

"Shut up," he whispers, his fingertips barely grazing her cheek, playing with a strand of her hair. Following the contours of her lips. "Shut up, Ino. And stop crying."

"Because it makes me ugly?" Ino whispers.

"No, because it makes me want to kiss you."


	7. Never Change

_**A/N: **__This is the last chapter to this story already. Thank you very much (especially you, sumtyms) for your continued support and your messages. Every single one was precious to me. _

_I hope to see you again some day._

* * *

**Part 7** _Never Change_

"Why?"

"What do you mean, why?"

"Why Chouji, Shikamaru and me, Kiba, Hinata and Shino, Neji, Tenten and Lee and Naruto, Sasuke and you? Why always groups of two boys and one girl? Don't you think it's strange?"

Sakura regards the flowers she has been arranging closely while she thinks. Usually Ino can't stand it when someone arranges her own flowers for her but she makes an exception with Sakura and Hinata.

"I never thought about it before," she finally answers. "Why do you ask?"

Ino has been thinking about this for as long as she can remember and still she struggles to explain. "I mean, why didn't they put you and Hinata and Kiba in one team, or Tenten, me and Chouji?"

"It's evaluated carefully who gets to be on which team, isn't it? I thought the teachers selected us according to our abilities and stuff."

"So what if Shikamaru would have been best put together with Kiba and Shino? They're good friends, after all, and they do go together well. And Naruto and I-" She stops. "We _were_ a good team, at least."

Sakura is taken aback but composes herself quickly. "Oh, when you both were Anbu, yeah. He never told me much about that time." She sounds sad. "Everyone says Naruto hasn't changed at all. But…"

"You know better?"

"How would I? Maybe _you_ know better, Ino, you've certainly spent more time with him in the past years than I have." Sakura smiles apologetically. "I'm not blaming you or anything. Fact is, I hated having him on my team so many times. He was so annoying, so stupid. He drove me crazy and I thought he was the worst person on earth. Nowadays I know better. There is no better man than him, no better team mate. No better friend, too. I wonder…" She interrupts herself. "No. That's not like him. Still, I can't…"

"You wonder what?" Ino leans forward, touches Sakura's hand. This is one of her oldest friends: one she has almost lost and found again. And while she loves Hinata and Tenten Sakura will always be the one she feels closest to, no matter if she reciprocates or not. And maybe that is the problem, she realizes. "You wonder if he sees you as a friend, too, Sakura? You do know you're married to him?"

"Yes. No." Sakura sinks down into the chair next to her, clasps her own hands tightly in her lap. "I wonder… Does he hate me sometimes, for everything I did when we were younger? Because I don't know. Does he know I love him?"

Ino can't help it: she smiles. "Sakura. I've spent a lot of time with Naruto and you should know him well enough to know what I'm going to tell you now: Naruto loves you more than anything. He loves all of us: it's the way he is. But you are special. If you're so unsure about it, why don't ask him?"

"I did already."

"And his answer?"

"He says he loves me."

"In your place, I'd believe him."

Sakura has grown beautiful in the past years. Ino watches her leave and smiles to herself.

...

So Sakura, Sasuke and Naruto.

She watches them from the window of her little office: Naruto laughs as he tells them something. Sakura smiles and gestures at them and Sasuke listens quietly and smirks. Naruto runs his hand through his hair - Ino knows this gesture of his so well - and his eyes are full of love when he looks at his wife. Their shoulders almost touch. Almost. Sasuke's not wearing the stupid Uchiha fan on his clothes anymore. Well, at least nowhere Ino can see.

She wonders whether the Gods are trying to tell her something.

And Ino still meets Chouji and Shikamaru weekly, cannot imagine a life without them. Is it the same for Kiba, though still on his journey, Hinata and Shino, and Neji, Tenten and Lee? At least with Neji, she has doubts. But looking at Hinata's face when she sees her old teammates – it is all there, plain and simple. Or not so simple. So all the Konoha Twelve share it: this kind of bond that either breaks four months after the end of training or strengthens with every year people are apart. It increases with every year they spend together. So dangerous. So painful. And so, so precious.

Four times three genin. Four times three that became one. Unfaultable math, irrational till the end. Does it make sense? Konoha will forever split her children into groups of three and perhaps logically the two-to-one-rule is a good solution. There always will be more boys attending the Academy than girls. One girl usually is enough to balance the boys, one girl can mediate the rivaling teammates while two girls might be trouble. Also, every team should be assigned a medic which is, statistically, something sixty-five percent of the female shinobi choose to be at. Logic, statistics, empirics. Can it really explain human minds? The development of painful and joyful bonds, so similar to the one in the previous generations. Is it fate, or a curse? Will history keep repeating itself forever? Ino can't say and nobody else can, either. She just knows that every single one of the children that once were the Konoha Twelve will fight hard for the future not to repeat the past's mistakes. It might not always be avoidable, as seen with Chouji's first team. But it is worth a shot. This is the point: when Sakura and Naruto's, or Hinata and Neji's, or Tenten's or Chouji's kids are old enough to become genin, their history will be different. Their _future_ will be different. And even if there might be some mistakes along the road Ino prays that everything will be fine, one day. It is a strange pattern and, at the same time, painfully familiar: Children become parents whose children become parents who wish for their children's happiness, while all the while struggling for their own. They will walk down the painful road to their own happiness while making mistakes, while being hurt, while repeating mistakes of their parents and their own. But in the end – and it is what Ino believes, what she _has_ to believe – everything will be alright.

It just _has_ to.

It starts with Sakura visiting her one day, her face glowing, and Ino knows she is pregnant before she opens her mouth. She gives birth to a beautiful baby boy. It finally has reached _that_ time when all of her friends have settled down and are starting to have families. Ino lags behind, as usual. Hinata's daughter inherits a shock of dark hair, her mother's delicate features and her family's silver eyes. She is pregnant again when Sakura gives birth. Uzumaki Shishiro and Hyuuga Kiju grow up together and seeing them is like seeing a little version of Naruto with his father's boisterousness and his mother's kindness and a little Neji, calm and clever, all over again. They grow up like siblings – Ino watches them when she is over to babysit because of some great clan meeting which both Sakura and Naruto and Hinata and Neji have to attend - and knows there won't be anything that can get between the two of them. Lee adopts an orphan. Sakura intervenes to make sure it gets to keep his sanity – and all the people around them, too. The bowl-haircut is unavoidable, though, and from that day on Lee calls Sakura "beautiful ever-young adopted mother of my youthful child". Kiba and Shino – well. When Shino invites people to his wedding the entirety of Konoha is stunned into silence. Only Hinata smiles knowingly. And Kiba returns from his travels with a child one day – red-haired, green-eyed, shy and so different from her happy-go-lucky father that nobody actually believes he _could_ be her father but since he does not disclose information (again, only Hinata and Shino seem to know something) nobody asks. Inuzuka Yuka grows up with the children of Hidden Leaf: Shishiro, Kiju, Suzu, Henara and all the others. And all of them are a part of the village they live in.

"Ino," Sakura says, in the soft silence that sometimes follows a conversation between friends . "You know you can bear children, too. What are you afraid of?"

Ino's greatest fear, ironically, is the greatest wonder of all.

Shikamaru is still by her side. On the day he proposes to her they both have just seen Temari off, Shikamaru as First Advisor to the Hokage, Ino in her function as Head of Intelligence. The Hidden Sand ambassador waves her fan energetically and calls an invitation over her shoulder which at least Ino probably will never take up but Shikamaru nods and lifts his hand in a good-bye gesture. And she can't help but feel jealous when thinking of the other woman. Temari… Temari is everything Ino never was, never could be and never will be. She's open, easy-going, unafraid, she has so much to give – things Ino can't give anymore. She can imagine the rumors. She heard them. _He must be a saint, staying with her all these years. _Pity? Ino can take many things, but not that. Not pity, and not from the man she loves.

"You," Shikamaru says, "Are completely out of your mind!"

"Am I?" She can't react other than trying to make herself seem taller in a chair that is her prison. She cannot even move closer to punch him, like she would have done all those years before. "So tell me, what do you have to gain from staying with me?"

Sometimes he shouts back. Sometimes even Shikamaru loses his temper; it is rare but she has seen it happen. This time he stays completely calm and she is abruptly reminded of the night he kissed her the first time.

"Is it a matter of gain and loss? No, Ino, it isn't, and you know that."

She does. It is just that he had dreams of a future and she knows they did not involve a paraplegic wife. And it is so, so hard to keep an optimistic view on herself when there are things she just _can't do._

"Whatever I say, you won't believe me, will you?"

He gets up and returns with her coat and a blanket and when she realizes he is actually taking her to the registration office she is struck silent. Shikamaru doesn't even need to bribe the clerk.

"You want me to marry you dressed like _this_?" She is wearing a plain skirt and a top. No makeup. Her hair, short and golden, hangs down to her shoulders without any clip or pin. It is summer, but the evening is cool already. _And she has no flowers. _

Shikamaru looks at her with his eyes dark and intense and says, "You are beautiful," and Ino can't remember when she blushed like that the last time.

She believes him.

…

Naruto tells her.

Only people who know the pain of being left – only people who have been hurt before – are able to give kindness. _This is you you're talking about_, Ino thinks, _this is you, Naruto, not me_. But his smile is so kind she cannot contradict him and when Ino doesn't say anything Naruto turns his gaze back to the sky. And Ino thinks that nobody ever could have been a better choice for Hokage than Naruto Uzumaki.

"I'm not," she whispers to Shikamaru at night. "I keep pretending. I try so hard to be perfect that I make others hate me. I don't speak up, never try to get things to change, I whine and mope and feel sorry for myself instead. I'm not kind. Why did Naruto say something like that?"

Shikamaru catches her hand, kisses her fingers. "It's the kind people who never think of themselves as such," he says quietly. Ino can only watch, helplessly. He leans over to her, presses his forehead against hers and she feels his breath on her lips, can feel his closeness. His warmth. "You care too much. That's why you get hurt."

"What does it matter?" Angrily, she wipes away a tear that has escaped. "Crap, _again._ Look at me, I'm weak."

"You are one of the strongest people I know. And despite what you believe, Ino – it matters. It matters to _me_. If every person that _cares_ has a person to whom it _matters_ – how many people can be saved?"

Ino closes her eyes. "For every human being there is one person out there that can reach out to him, or what? One person you love more than your own life?"

A ghost of a smile. "Something like that."

"It sounds nice. I wish it could be like that."

His lips touch hers softly, just a ghost of a touch. His nearness is familiar and she loves him. "I am _sure_ it works that way."

If there is a reason for her existence, Ino thinks, it is Shikamaru: she was born for him. Through everything – through her entire life, good or bad, through happiness and pain and sickness and health – this sole fact will never change.


End file.
